LITMIR.BIZ

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a long drink and a short rest, Ace.” He stroked away a film of prairie dust on the horse’s neck. “We might not be here any longer than the last ten towns we’ve ridden through.”

      Zane took the steps to the marshal’s office two at a time, swatting a clinging layer of dirt off his wool coat.

      A feminine giggle met him when he opened the door. The rustle of a petticoat and a gasp welcomed him inside. A woman, blushing like a summer peach, leaped off the lap of a young man sitting behind a big polished desk. The marshal’s badge hung from his shirt as though it was too heavy.

      He didn’t look to be more than a boy. The sudden blush of red flooding his cheeks didn’t age the image.

      “Afternoon, Marshal.” Zane nodded to the couple. The woman spun away, tugging at the bodice of her dress. “Miss.”

      “Mrs.,” she muttered. She turned again with her clothing restored. “Mrs. Taylor.”

      “My wife just …” The young man stood up and extended his hand across the desk. Zane shook it. “… she just brought lunch.”

      The couple must have been quick eaters. Zane didn’t spot a single crumb on anything that might be an eating surface.

      “Mind if I have a look at your wanted posters?”

      The boy marshal indicated the wall beside the door, the crimson in his cheeks fading to mottled pink.

      “Not much to look at,” he said. “Don’t get a lot of criminal traffic through Dry Leaf.”

      Not any that the marshal would recognize by the faded posters on the wall, at least. Wesley Wage was there, half hidden under a bright new page with the sketch of a young lady on it.

      Zane stared at her likeness for a moment. She had a pretty smile. On top of her head sat a bundle of curls held up by a ribbon. She seemed to stare out at him with eyes all sparkling with humor and curiosity. He’d give up a cold beer to know whether they were blue or brown. Maybe even green?

      She didn’t look like any criminal he’d ever trailed, but someone wanted her bad enough to offer a two-thousand-dollar reward.

      “What’s the lady’s crime?”

      “Oh, there’s no crime, mister. She’s just a runaway whose family wants her back in the worst way.” The marshal walked over to the wall of wanted posters and tapped the likeness on the nose. “If you read the small print down here on the bottom, you’ll see that the money’s only good if Lenore Devlin is returned in as chaste and unharmed a condition as she was when she fled the bosom of her family.”

      “What about this one?” Zane flipped the woman’s poster up to reveal the faded image of Wesley Wage. “Have you seen him?”

      “Like I said, wanted men don’t pass through Dry Leaf much.”

      “I’ve lived here all my life.” A sigh shoved the curve of Mrs. Taylor’s bosom against the boy’s canvas sleeve.

      “I can’t recall ever seeing anyone notorious.”

      The marshal glanced down at his wife’s chest and hiccupped. Likely, a villainous horde could ride down the main street of Dry Leaf and Marshal Taylor would never see it.

      “Thank you for your time.” Zane opened the door and stepped out onto the boardwalk. “I’ll leave the two of you to finish your … lunch.”

      He hadn’t taken two steps toward the saloon before he heard Mrs. Taylor’s giggle cut short by the closing of the door.

      He ought to feel relieved that the lawman was too occupied with wedded bliss to notice that Wage had passed his way, but instead he felt an odd sorrow tugging at his gut. Being witness to their intimacy set a yearning smack in his heart.

      Zane shook himself from the inside out. He didn’t want a wife, couldn’t have one even if he did. The life of a bounty hunter was a solitary one.

      He set his sights on the saloon half a block down. Wage might be able to outrun the law, but that five-hundred-dollar bounty was about to come crashing down on his head.

      The only crashing inside the peaceable saloon in Dry Leaf had been Zane’s spirits. According to the patrons inside, Wage had, once again, lit out just a rope toss ahead of him.

      Zane stood tall in the stirrups and stared out over the greening hills of the Nebraska countryside. He drew his coat closer about himself. There would be rain before nightfall and the wind whistling past his ears promised that it would be plenty cold.

      Unless he caught up with the bank robber soon, he’d spend a long shivering night wrapped up in the rain canvas tucked away in his pack.

      It was a shame that life hadn’t led him to be a shopkeeper or a banker where chilly nights could be spent gathered around a comfortable fire with a friend or two. Bounty-hunting was cold, dirty and occasionally heartless work, but it paid better than any easeful occupation he’d ever heard of. Any occupation that was legal, anyway.

      “There’ll be a warm stall with extra hay in it for you, Ace, once we collect that five hundred dollars.” He tipped the brim of his hat against the wind. Damned if it didn’t just smell cold.

      The horse whickered, tossed his black mane, then dug his hooves into the turf. He stood still with his nose flaring at the wind.

      “What’s the problem, fella, smell trouble?” Zane scanned the horizon but saw nothing more amiss than the ink-stained clouds that seemed to darken while he watched.

      He listened, straining to hear over the hiss of blowing grass. He recognized the gallop of pounding hooves an instant before a horse burst over the rise a few hundred feet to his left.

      “Looks like luck just fell right out of the sky, boy.” He stood tall in the stirrups, gazing hard at the horse that flew over the prairie as if it was being carried along by a wicked gust of wind. “Unless I’m wrong, Wage just lost his mount.”

      Capturing the runaway horse would be wise but would cost a good amount of time. Wage could only have a few miles on him and Zane wasn’t about to let that advantage slip away. If it came to Wage walking to the nearest town in mud up over his ankles, tied to the knot end of a rope, the man was only beginning to collect his due.

      The criminal couldn’t be behind bars soon enough. With one more bank robber put away, it would be safer for younglings to go along with their mothers to the bank. They’d never have to hear a shot crashing through glass. They’d never feel the jerk backward when—

      Zane shook his head, scattering the thought. He touched the worn lace ribbon holding his hair in a neat tail at his collar. The sooner Wesley Wage was put away the sooner he’d have his pocket full of money.

      “Let’s get him, boy.” Zane leaned forward. That was all the urging that Ace needed. The horse cared for nothing more than to run, to let his mane and tail fly straight out in the wind.

      At the rise of the first hill Zane ripped the ribbon from his nape and let out a shout. He liked the thrill of cold freedom whipping his hair as much as his horse did.

      Racing across the little valley made it feel as though Ace had wings instead of hooves. Fresh air filled Zane’s lungs and cleared his brain of lingering memories.

      Wage ought to be close, likely over the next hilltop. Coming over the ridge, he scanned the land falling away swiftly before him.

      “What the hell?”

      He almost stopped Ace in his stride to be sure of what he was seeing, but if his eyes weren’t playing tricks he’d need to push the horse to its limits.

      He blinked … twice, then leaned low and loose beside Ace’s great muscular neck.

      Wage was no more than a few hundred yards away, but he wasn’t alone. There was a woman dressed in … yes, by heavens … in her underclothes trying to keep Wage from stealing her horse.

      She wasn’t likely

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